the father’s portrait

I wondered yesterday ‘if you asked the fatherless to create a father’s portrait, what would they create?’

Tonight I received an answer.

It looks like Vermont hill covered trees being blanketed with the bright blue sky. That’s the portrait of a Father. It looks like an wooden dance floor of a wedding. Twinkly lights hanging off branches of the trees that delicately seem to sway over it, it invites you to dance with your life long love. That’s the portrait of a Father. It looks like a long table set with a feast. Sitting at the table are people whom you love, people whom you don’t particularly care for, and people whom you’ve never even met. That’s the portrait of a Father. It looked like hundreds of souls on a beach breathing songs of praise to the very One that created the infinite grains of sand that hold the weight of my body up. That’s the portrait of a Father. It looks like an alabaster body leaking crimson. That’s the portrait of a Father. It looks like a ship riding the waves of a stormy sea, guided by the light from a red light house that happens to be on an island of green in the middle of the ocean. That’s the portrait of a Father. This life is a portrait of my Father.